Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is post web content on a consistent basis to automatically start driving web traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. You will understand what makes an expertly configured site different, and how much work is required to ensure that when all is set up and configured, you can get traffic automatically just by publishing web content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are exploring any advantage they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For businesses, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to understand the main difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this here is an amusing story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things were going fine in the gizmo workshop when everything suddenly came to a halt.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the schematics for no more than 2 minutes or so, the expert then took out a tiny hammer and made a gentle tap near the left-hand corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything started working once more.
The plant manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them so much for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive web traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site fully configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
Although many experts often make complicated things look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that everything functions as envisioned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a button … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of a number of different components including your web hosting server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
External Web Properties And Accounts – Configuration
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically get syndicated to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external services into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website gets automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and business benefits from additional exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some web properties and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your WordPress settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account with Google Webmasters, the information can be used with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, tracking data can be integrated with WordPress via a simple plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is set up, the information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts before you can configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and pages set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services field
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section …
(WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading
This section affects how your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically ping various update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your posts, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks, go here: Configuring Your WordPress Permalinks
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from being targeted.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google and Bing find, crawl and index your website …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins let you specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Other Features
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Categories And Tags
WordPress tags and post categories help search engines classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Only search engine bots can interpret XML sitemaps. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Page
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to a page on your site that no longer exists, they will typically be greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is post great content regularly to begin bringing new traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes many website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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